PM Questions the Issuance of Mason’s Birth Certificate

Dean Barrow

Throughout the unfolding ordeal, several questions have been asked about Mason’s Belizean citizenship.  Despite the many assumed names: William Ferguson, Ted Ouellet, Raj Ouellet, Danny Ouellet and Ramesh….Mason was in possession of a Belizean birth certificate bearing the name he presently uses.  That nationality document says that Mason was born in Crooked Tree in 1970…even though he has only been tracked in Belize for three years. Just how did he get a hold of that document and was it issued to him by the Vital Statistics Unit?  The Prime Minister responded to that query, as well as a notion that his account of the Mennonite kidnapping contradicts information given during Monday’s press conference. 

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“As I said on the radio just now, I understand that he is in possession of a birth certificate.  I don’t know whether that is simply something that was manufactured by some counterfeiter or whether it is something that came out of the Vital Statistics Unit as a consequence of collusion.  The police are investigating.”

Reporter

“Sir, but it was said on Monday that police did speak with the couple before they fled and they spoke with the couple when they were in Canada and they gave conflicting reports.  So that contradicts what you’re saying.”

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“Marisol, I am telling you that when I had that report and I spoke to the Ministry of National Security officials, I was told that the Mennonites had made no official report, no complaint.  That’s not inconsistent with their perhaps having said something informally to some police officers.  I don’t know.  There was, as far as C.E.O. Lovell told me, no official complaint and people had left the country.  In the absence of an official report and in the absence of the victims from the country, how on earth would the police have been able to make an arrest? They couldn’t have.”